The Easter Rebellion, was an armed uprising of Irish
nationalists against the rule of Great Britain in Ireland. The
uprising occurred on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, and centred
mainly in Dublin. The chief objectives were the attainment of
political freedom and the establishment of an Irish republic.
Centuries of discontent, marked by numerous rebellions, preceded
the uprising. The new crisis began to develop in September 1914,
following the outbreak of World War I, when the British
government suspended the recently enacted Home Rule Bill, which
guaranteed a measure of political autonomy to Ireland. Suspension
of the bill stimulated the growth of the Citizen Army, an illegal
force of Dublin citizens organised by the labour leader Jim
Larkin (died 1948) and the socialist James Connolly (1870-1916);
of the Irish Volunteers, a national defence body; and of the
extremist Sinn Féin. The
uprising was planned by leaders of these organisations, among
whom were the British consular agent Sir Roger David Casement,
the educator Padhraic Pearse (1879-1916), and the poet Thomas
MacDonagh (1878-1916).

Hostilities began about noon on April 24, when about 2000 men
led by Pearse seized control of the Dublin post office and other
strategic points within the city. Shortly after these initial
successes, the leaders of the rebellion proclaimed the Independence of Ireland and announced the
establishment of a provisional government of the Irish Republic.
Additional positions were occupied by the rebels during the
night, and by the morning of April 25 they controlled a
considerable part of Dublin. The counteroffensive by British
forces began on Tuesday with the arrival of reinforcements.
Martial law was proclaimed throughout Ireland. Bitter street
fighting developed in Dublin, during which the strengthened
British forces steadily dislodged the Irish from their positions.
By the morning of April 29, the post office building, site of the
rebel headquarters, was under violent attack. Recognising the
futility of further resistance, Pearse surrendered
unconditionally in the afternoon of April 29.

The British immediately brought the leaders of the uprising to
trial before a field court-martial. Fifteen of the group,
including Pearse, Connolly, and MacDonagh, were sentenced to
death and executed by firing squad. Four others, including the
American-born Eamon de Valera,
received death sentences that were later commuted to life
imprisonment, although de Valera and some others were granted
amnesty the next year. Casement was convicted of treason and
hanged. Many others prominently connected with the rebellion were
sentenced to long prison terms. The uprising was the first of a
series of events that culminated in the establishment of the
Irish Free State (predecessor of the Republic of Ireland) in
1921. Casualties were about 440 British troops and an estimated
75 Irish (below are their names). Property damage included the
destruction of about 200 buildings in Dublin.

The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation (from the left):

Padraig Pearse, James Connolly,
Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh, Sean MacDermott, Joseph Plunkett
& Eamonn Ceannt All of the above men were executed by the British

Government
for their
efforts in trying to secure a free Ireland!

The names of those who died or were
executed (* means executed)

Padraig Pearse *

Thomas MacDonagh *

Thomas Clarke *

Joseph Plunkett *

Edward Daly *

Michael OHanrahan *

William Pearse *

Sean McBride *

Con Colbert *

Eamonn Ceannt *

Michael Mallin *

Sean Hueston *

James Connolly *

Sean McDermott *

John Adams

Thomas Allen

William Burke

Andrew Byrne

James Byrne

Louis Byrne

Charles Carrigan

Philip Clarke

Sean Connolly

James Corcoran

Edward Costello

John Costello

Henry Coyle

John Crenigan

John Cromien

Charles Darcy

Brendan Donelan

Patrick Doyle

John Dwan

Edward Ennis

Patrick Farrell

James Fox

George Geoghegan

John Healy

Sean Howard

Sean Hurley

John Keely

Con Keating

Gerald Keogh

Francis Macken

Peader Macken

Michael Malone

Peter Manning

James McCormack

William McDowell

Charles Monaghan

Michael Mulvihill

Richard Murphy

Daniel Murray

Richard OCarroll

Patrick OConnor

Patrick OFlanagan

John OGrady

The ORahilly

John OReilly

Thomas OReilly

John Owens

James Quinn

Thomas Rafferty

George Reynolds

Fredrick Ryan

Domhnall Sheehan

Patrick Shortis

John Traynor

Edward Walsh

Philip Walshe

Thomas Weafer

Patrick Whelan

Peter Wilson

Richard Kent

Roger Casement * (1)

Thomas Kent * (2)

Thomas Ashe (3)

Note:

(1) Roger Casement was executed in Pentonville prison London.
(2) Thomas Kent was executed in Cork jail.
(3) Thomas Ashe died on a hunger-strike in 1917.

O'Connell Street after the 1916 rising
Click the image for a larger picture

A poem:

Awaiting freedom from my mother’s womb
At Resurrection time, some glint of rebel steel
Pierced deep my soul, so deep
That fifty years have not erased the thrill
The names of Pearse and Plunkett,
Clarke, MacDonagh, Connolly
Ceannt and Sean Mac Diarmada arouse,
Of freedom born in blood.

Wresting freedom from a tyrant’s hand
Had often been essayed on Ireland’s soil.
Essayed at cost, at bitter cost
By men of eager hearts and giant mind, yet still
Each century brought fourthThe poets, princes of pen,
To thrill with their philosophy
A nation’s captive hearts.
No lust of blood inflamed the freedom verse
To turn the ploughshare to the sword;
They unlocked hearts, e'en timid hearts
To dreams undreamt of within captive breasts,
And set vast floods of liberty afloat
Upon a sea too long content
With anchored hopes,
And flotsam fears.

Who can recall an Emmet or a Tone,
A Mitchel or a Davitt or Devoy,
Without a glorious surging of the blood
And anticipation of emancipation
From the long-remembered wrongs
Upon a nation's rights?
Just tribute must be paid by
Freedmen to felon's heirs.

Half a century ago our resurrection came
Heralded by another name, the name of Pearse,
An Apollo with a quiver of words,
Music-tipped arrows to reach the very souls
Of those who longed and longed for freedom's balm;
Gentle leader of a quiet few
Who braved a tyrant's might
To make a bondman free.

Let me praise him who close by Rossa’s grave
Praised the virtue of a valiant man
From a heart and tongue pregnant then
With death-decision made for
Freedom's urgent birth;
A man whose spiritual eye could see the joy
Of a ladybird upon a stalk,
Or a rabbit in a field at play.

There were no deaths in Dublin on that
Easter day some fifty years ago-
Such music makers cannot die
As many mercenary soldiers do
With battles lost or won.
They have but set the music to a song
That ever holds us bound,
Yet leaves us ever free.

Like Pearse or Plunkett,
MacDonagh and Mac Diarmada
Ceantt and Clarke,
And Connolly

DOMINIC CRILLY

The Liberation

Irish liberation (for 26 out of 32 counties) from British rule was achieved as the result
of a struggle extending over several centuries and marked by
numerous rebellions. Following the Easter Rebellion, an uprising
of Irish nationalists on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, Sinn
Féin became the most influential political party in Ireland.
This party, founded in 1905 by Arthur
Griffith, a Dublin journalist, campaigned in the
parliamentary election of 1918 on a program that called for the
severance of all ties with Great Britain, an end to the
separatist movement in northern Ireland, and the establishment of
an Irish republic. Candidates of Sinn Féin won 73 of the 106
seats allotted to Ireland in the British Parliament.

The Irish Revolution (1919-22)

In January 1919 the Sinn Féin members of Parliament assembled
in Dublin as the Dáil Éireann, or national assembly.
Proclaiming the independence of Ireland, the Dáil forthwith
formed a government, with Eamon De Valera as president. There
followed guerrilla attacks by Irish insurgents, later called the
Irish Republican Army (IRA), on
British forces, particularly the Royal Irish Constabulary, called
the Black and Tans; and the British instituted vigorous
reprisals. In the course of the war, the British Parliament
enacted, in December 1920, a Home Rule Bill, providing separate
parliaments for six counties of Ulster Province and for the
remainder of Ireland. By the terms of the bill, Great Britain
retained effective control of Irish affairs. The people of
Northern Ireland, as the six counties in Ulster Province were
known, ratified the legislation in May 1921 and elected a
parliament. Although the rest of Ireland also elected a
parliament in May, the Sinn Feiners, constituting an overwhelming
majority outside of Ulster, refused to recognise the other
provisions of the Home Rule Bill. The warfare against the British
continued until July 10, 1921, when a truce was arranged.
Subsequent negotiations led to the signing, in December 1921, of
a peace treaty by representatives of the second Dáil Éireann
and the British government. By the terms of the treaty, all of
Ireland except the six counties constituting Northern Ireland was
to receive dominion status identical with that of Canada. After
considerable debate, in which the opposition, led by De Valera,
objected strenuously to a provision that virtually guaranteed a
separate government in Northern Ireland and to an article that
required members of the Dáil to swear allegiance to the British
sovereign, the Dáil ratified the treaty on January 15, 1922, by
a vote of 64 to 57. Ratification brought into being the Irish
Free State, with Arthur Griffith as president and Michael Collins, who was another
prominent member of Sinn Féin, as chairman of the provisional
government.

The Irish Free State (1922-37)

Under the leadership of De Valera, the dissident Sinn Féin
group, termed the Republicans and later known as Fianna Fáil,
called for a resumption of the struggle against Great Britain and
instituted a campaign, including insurrectionary acts, against
the provisional government. With the question of the treaty the
chief issue, an election for a provisional Dáil was held in June
1922. Candidates supporting the treaty won a majority of the
seats. The Republicans, refusing to recognise the authority of
the new Dáil, proclaimed a rival government and intensified
their attacks on the Irish Free State. In the course of the
ensuing struggle, hundreds were killed on both sides, and many
prominent Republican leaders were executed. while, the Dáil,
headed now by William Thomas
Cosgrave, drafted a constitution providing for a bicameral
legislature (Dáil and Saenad, or senate), which was adopted on
October 11, 1922. Following approval by the British Parliament,
it became operative on December 6. The official government of the
Irish Free State was instituted at once, with Cosgrave assuming
office as president of the executive council. In April 1923 the
Republicans declared a truce in hostilities in order to
participate in the forthcoming national elections, and public
order was gradually restored. Neither the Sinn Féin party nor
the Republican party secured a majority in the elections held
late in August 1923. The Republicans boycotted the Dáil,
however, and Cosgrave, supported by a coalition of parties,
retained power. The boundary between the Free State and Northern
Ireland was established in December 1925. During the next few
years, agreement was reached with the British government on
various mutual problems, and the national economy was
substantially strengthened by a series of measures, including the
initiation of a hydroelectric project on the Shannon River.

Although the Republicans gradually increased their
representation in the Dáil during this period, they continued
their boycott until August 1927. They then assumed their 57 seats
in the newly elected Dáil. Partly as a result of the failure of
the government to cope with domestic difficulties brought on by
the world economic crisis of the early 1930s, Cosgrave's party
lost several seats to the Republicans in the elections of
February 1932. De Valera thereupon became head of the government.
Legislation that he sponsored in the following April included
provisions for the abrogation of the oath of allegiance to the
British crown. This bill, which also would have virtually ended
the political ties between Great Britain and the Free State,
received the approval of the Dáil, but was rejected, in effect,
by the Saenad. In his next move against the British, De Valera
withheld payment of certain land purchase annuities that the
British claimed were legally due them. The withholding of the
payment of annuities led to a protracted tariff war between the
two countries, with serious damage to the economy of the Free
State. In another significant move, De Valera secured repeal of a
law restricting the activities of the IRA. The electorate
registered approval of his program in elections held in January
1933, in which a majority of Republicans were returned to the
Dáil.

With this mandate from the people, De Valera systematically
developed his program for the gradual elimination of British
influence in Irish affairs, obtaining abrogation of the oath of
allegiance, restrictions on the role of the governor-general who
represented the British crown, and other measures.
Simultaneously, the government initiated measures designed to
give the country a self-sufficient economy. Steps taken included
high income taxes on the rich, high protective tariffs, and
control of foreign capital invested in Irish industry. In June
1935, De Valera severed his political ties with the IRA, which
had been extremely critical of many of his policies, and
imprisoned a number of its leaders. It became general knowledge,
meanwhile, that the draft of a new constitution was in progress.
In 1936 the Republicans, in coalition with other groups in the
Dáil, finally secured passage of legislation abolishing the
Saenad, long inimical to De Valera's policies. The Dáil
functioned as a unicameral legislature for the remainder of its
term. In connection with the events surrounding the abdication of
Edward VIII, king of Great Britain, the Dáil enacted in 1936 a
bill that deleted all references to the king from the
constitution of the Free State and abolished the office of
governor-general. Parallel legislation, which was known as the
External Relations Act of 1936, restricted the association of the
Free State with the British Commonwealth of Nations to joint
action on certain questions involving external policy,
specifically the approval of the trade treaties of the Free State
and the appointment of its foreign envoys in the name of the
British crown.

Éire (1937-49)

The 5-year term of office of the Dáil expired in June 1937.
In the subsequent election the Republican party won a plurality
of the seats in the Dáil. The new constitution, which abolished
the Irish Free State and established Éire as a 'Sovereign
independent democratic state,' was approved by the voters in a
plebiscite conducted simultaneously with the election. This
document provided for a new senate of 60 members. Although the
constitution specifically applied to all Ireland, it provided
that the laws of Éire should be executed, pending unification
with Northern Ireland, only within the territory of the republic.
The constitution contained no references to the British sovereign
or to the Commonwealth of Nations. A subsequent statement by De
Valera indicated, however, that Éire's relations with Great
Britain would be governed by the External Relations Act of 1936.
In 1938 the Irish writer and patriot Douglas Hyde became the
first president of Éire, and De Valera became prime minister.

Through a treaty adopted in April 1938, the tariff war between
Éire and Great Britain was concluded. The latter agreed to
withdraw its forces from naval bases in Éire, and Éire agreed
to a settlement of the annuities owed to Great Britain. The
slight improvement in relations between the two nations was
marred by a violent terrorist campaign in Great Britain conducted
by the IRA.

Éire maintained neutrality in World War II, although many
thousands of Irish citizens joined the Allied forces or worked in
British war industry. In the immediate post-war era, the economic
dislocations in Great Britain and Europe subjected the economy of
Éire to severe strains, resulting in a period of rapid inflation
and, indirectly, in the defeat of Fianna Fáil in the elections
of February 1948. De Valera was defeated in the Dáil for the
prime ministry by John Aloysius
Costello, candidate of a six-party coalition opposed to
Fianna Fáil. Costello, a former attorney general, called for
lower prices and taxes, the expansion of industrial production,
and closer commercial relations with Great Britain.

Republic of Ireland

On Easter Monday, April 18, 1949, by the terms of the Republic
of Ireland Bill approved by the Dáil in November 1948, Éire
became the Republic of Ireland, formally free of allegiance to
the British crown and the Commonwealth of Nations. In the
following month, the British Parliament approved a bill
continuing the status of Northern Ireland as a part of Great
Britain and extending to citizens of the republic resident in
Britain the same rights as British citizens. Similar legal
provision was made by the Éire government in respect of British
citizens resident in Éire. The republic became a member of the
United Nations on December 14, 1955, when the General Assembly
approved the admission of 4 communist and 12 non-communist
nations.

Economic Gains

Although inflation and an unfavourable balance of trade
remained difficult problems, Ireland made significant strides
toward economic stability through the 1950s and '60s. In 1964 the
government completed a five-year plan of economic development,
which exceeded its goals. A feature of the program was the offer
of tax incentives to foreign investors.

Partly as a result of such programs, the rate of economic
growth increased from about 1 percent per year in the 1950s to
more than 4.5 percent in the late 1960s. It was officially
reported in 1964 that more than 200 factories had begun
production since 1955, most of them with foreign participation. A
second plan began that year with a goal by 1970 of a net increase
of 50 percent in the gross national product over the 1960 level.
The improving economic circumstances were regarded as the main
cause of a decline in emigration, ending a population decline
that had continued unabated for more than a century.

Political Developments

With economic stability came a new measure of political
stability and a decline in traditional anti-British feeling. As
early as 1957 Prime Minister Costello, who regarded the terrorist
activities of the IRA as damaging to relations with Great Britain
and tending to prolong the partition of Ireland, had called for
forceful action against the organisation. Costello was defeated
for reelection, but early in 1958 his successor, De Valera,
publicly agreed that unity could not be achieved by force. In
June 1959, De Valera, at the age of 77, was elected president,
and Seán Francis Lemass (1899-1971), deputy prime minister,
became prime minister. Opposition to IRA activity, plus a decline
in the active membership, led to the announcement in February
1962 that the group had abandoned violence. Nevertheless, Ireland
continued to suffer occasional acts of terrorism. In 1966 Prime
Minister Lemass resigned. The Fianna Fáil won the ensuing
elections, and John Mary Lynch became prime minister. To reduce
unemployment and increase exports, he tried to build up industry
in order.

An increase of violence between Protestants and Catholics in
Northern Ireland was followed by IRA terrorist activity in the
Irish Republic. In 1971 the Dáil banned the purchase or holding
of arms for use outside Ireland. In 1972 the government required
the surrender of all firearms.

Also in early 1972 Ireland signed a treaty joining the
European Community, effective January 1, 1973, a move favored by
83 percent of the voters; and, by referendum, ended the special
constitutional status of the Roman Catholic church.

Shifts in Power

Hoping to strengthen his party, Lynch called elections in
February 1973. A coalition of the Fine Gael and Labour parties
gained a slim majority, however, and Fine Gael leader Liam
Cosgrave became prime minister. Fianna Fáil returned to power in
a government headed by Lynch in 1977, in 1979 Lynch was replaced
by Charles Haughey (1925- ).

In the late 1970s and early '80s the Irish government faced
increased domestic terrorism by extremist Irish nationalists.
Ireland also had a high rate of inflation and suffered some
economic dislocation from membership in the European Community.
Amid rising unemployment, elections were held in 1981, and the
coalition government was led briefly by Garret FitzGerald (1926-
), head of Fine Gael. Inconclusive elections in February 1982
returned Haughey to power, but another election, in late 1982,
brought FitzGerald back. In 1985 FitzGerald signed a pact with
Great Britain giving the Irish Republic a consultative role in
governing Northern Ireland. The collapse of the FitzGerald
government in January 1987 led to new elections one month later.
Haughey won a single-vote majority in the Dáil Éireann and
became prime minister once again. FitzGerald subsequently
resigned as Fine Gael leader. After inconclusive elections in
June 1989, Haughey formed a new coalition government. In November
1990, Mary Robinson (1944- ), a
feminist lawyer who ran with Labour and Workers' party backing,
became the first woman ever to win election as president of
Ireland. Haughey resigned as prime minister and leader of Fianna
Fáil in early 1992, amid allegations of scandal; his former
finance minister, Albert Reynolds (1932- ), was chosen to replace
him. In June, Irish voters ratified a treaty strengthening
political and monetary integration within the European Community.